Fact-check: Sexist Codebabes.com not run by a convicted child pornographer

Codebabes.com is awful. There’s no denying, challenging or arguing with that statement.

The website promises to teach would-be programmers how to code using virtual instructors who take off more clothing the further students get into the course. Codebabes describes the approach as “offering real positive feedback, like Pavlov’s dog on crack.”

It teases learning with sexuality. An industry already rife with allegations of sexism does not need another site that produces so much sexist content that it almost parodies the tropes of sexist programmers the world over. It’s awful. It does a disservice to men, women, and the very notion of professional development.

With the awful idea of trying to use sexism to teach people to learn how to code websites and programs, a good portion of the internet became interested in who these people are and what their motivation is. But they quickly ran off track.

Codebabes.com lists on its Terms of Use page that it is operated by HotCode, a company in San Francisco.

HotCode, in turn, was created on April 14, 2014 so is less than a month old. The business listing identifies Gary D. Grant as the registered agent of the company and lists his location as Aliso Viejo, in California.

Gary D. Grant has been in the news before, though, and not for the right reasons. This is where everyone runs afoul of common sense and lets their imagination run away with them.

Those statements rely on Google searches for his name, which net some interesting results. Back in 2007, when he was working as a military lawyer in California, he was accused of accessing images of child pornography. The case was outlined in an article by California Lawyer in 2013.

He pleaded guilty to one count of felony possession; prosecutors agreed to drop the other two charges. The judge sentenced Grant to 90 days in jail and three years of probation, and ordered him to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He did not appeal his conviction or sentence. –Read the rest here.

In January of 2014, he was disbarred for the conviction and lost his license to practice law. You can read the original 68-page court ruling from 2011 as PDF here or the final 16-page ruling from the Supreme Court of California here. His history with the California Bar Association is listed here. He has been ineligible to practice law since 2009 and was formally disbarred on Feb. 22, 2014.

But here’s the rub: Gary D. Grant is not the owner of HotCode. He has no relationship with Codebabes.com. When I contacted him, he asked me to explain why he was suddenly getting a lot of phone calls about a site he had never heard of before.

“Every company in the united states has registered agent. I am the registered agent for a number of California companies,” he said.

“Someone can serve me with a complaint, and I forward that document to the company. That’s my sole sole relationship for any company.”

He’s right. Gary D. Grant is the registered agent for dozens of companies in California, from education firms and auto repair companies to design companies and software firms. Hotcode just happens to be one of them.

Grant then asked me if Codebabes is a programming site or a pornography site. Ironically, the only answer is ‘yes.’